


See You Later, Soulmate

by ThornsWithoutRoses, wolfyevans



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Apathy, Brief miscommunication, Depression, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mentions of being suicidal, Miscommunication, Other, Soulmates, Swearing, They communicate eventually I promise, mentions of bad parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25024993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThornsWithoutRoses/pseuds/ThornsWithoutRoses, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfyevans/pseuds/wolfyevans
Summary: Alja didn’t know what her future held. No one did, she supposed, but some were easier to guess than others. Hers had no definitive direction, the only thing Alja really knew was that life, at least up until this point, sucked. It sucked ass.Soulmates were designed to give people happiness. Though, Alja had always tried to keep it in mind that she seemed to be the exception in the worst ways possible.
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Original Non-Binary Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	See You Later, Soulmate

Alja didn’t know what her future held. No one did, she supposed, but some were easier to guess than others. Hers had no definitive direction, the only thing Alja really knew was that life, at least up until this point, sucked. It sucked ass.

Sure, she’d contemplated ending it all just like every other suicidal teenager, but she never did. The idea of never seeing what could happen bothered her much more than the idea of it all being painful.

Alja knew pain. Pain was basically her second language.

Her therapist had explained to Alja that her apathy towards life and all it held was a coping mechanism for trauma, and that feeling little to nothing was, in fact, not normal. Though, fittingly, she didn’t care. Her apathetic view of everything made all the blows life dealt her so much more manageable, so why should she change? Sure, it meant that she took little pleasure in things as well, but sacrificing the enjoyment of completing a task or giving someone a hug for the first time seemed well worth no longer feeling the painful thump of her heart beating as someone broke it again. Her parents, her (old) friends, anyone she dared talk to. The only person who stuck around was her therapist, and that’s only because Alja paid her to do so.

The soulmark on her arm was a mere reminder of all the things that were possible in the world. Sure, Alja could find happiness, love, and whatever the fuck else the movies came up with, but she could also just find more of the pain she’d become so accustomed to. Her heart feeling heavy was just part of life to her at this point. How could anyone love a girl who didn’t even feel?

The brutal honesty of random chance had always been a comfort to Alja. Random chance promised not everything that happened would have a bad outcome. It couldn’t, assuming everything was 50/50. The likelihood of  _ everything _ being bad was very low.

The only problem was this little shit streak that she’d managed to get herself into seemed to keep going and going and going. It seemed unreasonable that this was her life. She was basically a cocktail of mental illness, and her family life was anything but perfect. It was truly a recipe for disaster, but Alja could still hope if she wanted to.

As Alja’s feet trudged through the school yet another time as she wandered instead of eating lunch, she accidentally brushed arms with someone attempting to run by her. Chills unlike she’d ever felt ran up her arm, and her mind instantly ran to the idea of soulmates. The chills were exactly like her therapist described. It was the closest thing Alja had felt to a real feeling in quite a long time. Alja’s feet quickly stopped, and she could hear her soulmate’s shoes squeak as they slid to a stop on the waxy floors. Alja looked to her soulmate, her heart beating faster despite her best efforts for it not to. Her stomach felt strange; like it was heavy and uncomfortable just floating inside her skin. Whatever feeling she’d managed to stumble into was, well and truly, not her favorite. Maybe it was anxiety, she reasoned, but she couldn’t be sure. 

As Alja made eye contact with her soulmate, the feeling doubled in intensity. She almost wanted to just run away and curl up into a ball. But her feet wouldn’t move. Her soulmate was pretty, she realized. Really, really pretty. Her soulmate had long hair, it was brown and red and blond all at the same time, and yet it seemed natural. They were clearly fit, but they weren’t super thin. They had a cute nose and their eyes were a light color. The shoes that had assaulted her eardrums not moments before were worn, the soles rubbed thin with constant wear. They were really, truly, very pretty. Alja felt her heart stutter knowing that this person could be the one she spent her entire life with.

“Could” was the operating word there.

“No.” Was the first word her soulmate ever said to her. How one simple word could hurt so much, Alja would never know.

“No?” Alja asked, feeling her heart hurt more and more with each passing second.

“There is no way you’re my soulmate. You were supposed to be...” They trailed off. Alja would admit, that hurt. Her soulmate was not what she expected, but she had at least tried not to assume. Clearly, her soulmate had not done the same. That hurt her more than she cared to admit. It looked like this, like everything else in her life, was just another source of pain.

Alja put on the best smile she could, though she could tell it looked almost as pained as she felt.

“It’s okay.” She said. She wanted to say more than that, but she could feel her voice about to waver dangerously. Alja did not want to cry in the middle of a hallway, even more than she did not want to say goodbye to one of the only opportunities she saw for a life without pain.

“What? How is this okay?” Her soulmate asked, now bewildered. Alja gave them a sad look.

“I knew this was going to happen, so it’s okay that it did.” Alja explained, though it was somewhat clipped and definitely not as solid as she would’ve liked.

“How could you possibly have known this was going to happen?” Her soulmate pressed further.

Alja shrugged, “I mean, I didn’t know this exactly. I just knew it was going to hurt.”

“How?” Her soulmate really wanted her to cry, huh.

“It always does. People like me don’t get the luxury of winning in life.” Alja’s voice broke a little at the end, so she cleared her throat and attempted to give another smile. She knew this one looked even worse than the one before, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. “I hope life treats you well, soulmate.” She said after a moment of silence. It hurt too much to stay. Her soulmate just looked at her, maybe incredulous or maybe unhappy, Alja couldn’t tell. All she could tell is that she wanted to get the hell out of there before her feelings got even more hurt.

Alja turned on her right foot, walking away as casually as she could to her next class, despite lunch still having plenty of time left. She found her next class, walked quickly to the closest bathroom, got into a stall, and cried. Silently, of course. The tears streaming down her face and the rattled breaths forcing their way out of her got harder and harder to quiet, but she tried anyway. The first feeling she’d felt in months, maybe even years, was pain. How fitting.

How sad was it that even the one person most likely to give her happiness was the one person to hurt her the most? She couldn’t even be a soulmate correctly. Alja was always supposed to be someone else. Be better. Be different. Be anyone but her.

Alja’s newly-formed headache pounded as the warning bell for the end of lunch rang. She trudged herself off the toilet she’d taken refuge on, checked her face for any wet lines (she knew the blotchiness would not go away anytime soon), and walked to class. Her tablemates stared at her as she sat down. She clearly looked like she’d been crying seconds earlier, but nobody said anything. No one knew what to do when someone cried. Especially not a near stranger.

Alja finished her work as quickly as possible before jumping on the school bus that would take her home. All Alja wanted to do was cry even more, and then sleep. The people at her bus stop clearly noticed her hurried walk to her house, but didn’t seem to care either.

No one cared. Not even her soulmate.

Alja didn’t know why this hurt so badly, she had braced herself for something like this, and she knew there was a chance her soulmate wouldn't want her. She  _ knew _ it was possible, and yet that knowledge didn’t soften the blow even a little bit.

Alja wished, perhaps selfishly, that all this pain would have a physical scar. That she could point to a mark on her skin and say “yeah it hurt, but it got better with time” like any other injury. She knew this probably wouldn’t get better with time. Or, at the very least, it would take a lot more time for this to heal than some stupid scab on her skin. She couldn’t just take a pain med, put some cream and a bandage on it then call it a day.

Alja took a breath. None of this was helpful. None of these thoughts would get her anywhere closer to okay. For the first time in her life, Alja purposefully tried to shut off. Cancel any emotion she felt, stop every forbidden thing that kept her heart beating so painfully in her chest. All the work her therapist had done to allow her to feel, a brief success, and then a crushing failure. What a stupid way for things to work out.

Alja got almost a breath of satisfaction as she felt all the pain wind down. She stopped feeling anything. Her heart still twisted, but it wasn’t painful. It was just odd, she supposed. Her stomach was still heavy too. But her brain didn’t acknowledge it. It was like she was spectating her own emotion. Seeing, but not feeling. Alja’s thoughts quickly quieted to a blank fuzzy nothingness as her emotion stopped giving her painful things to think about. Alja was truly empty.

Alja decided to do what little homework she had and go straight to sleep. She felt no will to eat, despite the hunger in her stomach. Alja just curled up onto her bed, still in her school clothes and not even under the blankets.

As Alja finally opened her eyes she realized she’d woken up just minutes before she usually would for school. Her stomach rumbled angrily at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She peeled away her wrinkled clothes and just replaced them with new ones before walking downstairs. Her mother, already up, looked at her fleetingly before turning back to whatever she was cooking.

“Morning, Alja. Grab some fruit before you head out.” Her mother said, succinct and lifeless as usual. Had Alja not known better, she would’ve guessed the apathy was genetic.

“Morning, mom.” Alja said, voice rough. Alja felt no need to eat, but grabbed fruit anyway. Might as well not be a disappointment this early in the day, Alja thought dryly to herself. Alja knew these thoughts would never help, but she didn’t care.

She didn’t want to care, and that’s what made her so self destructive.

Alja ate the fruit, though it tasted mushy and not particularly good like she was used to. Eating felt wrong, somehow; less like a necessity and more like a chore. Alja then quickly brushed her teeth before heading out, not saying goodbye. No one would care if I said goodbye anyway, Alja reasoned with herself. If people don’t care that I exist, they certainly wouldn’t care if I existed elsewhere.

Alja’s feet hit the pavement of her school’s parking lot only moments before her soulmate ran up to her. Alja almost just walked away, but didn’t. There wasn’t any _ hope  _ keeping her there, more of a morbid curiosity. Her soulmate panted lightly as they slowed in front of Alja.

“Morning, soulmate,” Alja said apathetically, her voice as empty as she felt. They flinched slightly at the obvious lack of enthusiasm. Alja almost felt guilty, but quickly suppressed that feeling with a desperate ferocity she didn’t know she still had.

“It’s Kieran.” Her soulmate, Kieran, said. Alja nodded.

“Morning, Kieran,” Alja repeated, the same dead tone as before. “Do you need something?” She asked. Kieran looked even more pained.

“To talk to you,” Kieran said, rather unhelpfully. Alja felt a tiny bit of anger pool in her ribs before suppressing it ruthlessly once again.

“I mean, I think your message from yesterday was plenty clear.” Alja aimed for indifference. She hoped she succeeded.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Kieran looked to be struggling a little bit. Alja shrugged away any empathy that managed to crawl into her gut.

“I mean, outright refusing my existence and claiming I had to be someone else for you to ever want anything to do with me was a shitty way to do that, but okay,” Alja said. Alja almost felt guilty for saying it so bluntly. Almost. Kieran looked even more pained.

“I’m really sorry. That’s really not what I meant to come across when I said that.“ Kieran said once more, words choppy and somewhat slowed. Alja almost laughed, renewed pain curling her heart.

“Is this a prank? Blink twice if this is a prank. I can just go along with whatever’s going on, and then you can go back to whoever I was supposed to be.” Alja said, distrust heavy in the front of her mind. Kieran looked to be on the point of tears. Alja felt slightly guilty, despite the pain she’d been through just a day before. But Alja shoved down any emotion she could manage, hoping and craving desperately for any sort of release for this pain and emptiness this one person had caused

“No, this isn’t a prank. I know I fucked up, okay? I have a bad tendency to think out loud, and you only heard part of what I was thinking.” Kieran managed to string together. Alja felt a sliver of hope before she quickly smashed it with all of her might.

“How on earth are you going to make ‘No.’ and ‘You were supposed to be someone else.’ sound any less painful than they do now?” Alja asked dryly. Kieran flinched.

“I know, it’s really bad. When I said that, I was thinking about how I’m,” they hesitated, “How I’m still closeted. I’m non-binary, but my parents refuse to call me such. I was born biologically female, and so I had somewhat hoped my soulmate would be a guy so at least I could do one thing right in their eyes.” Kieran spilled, their words rushing in a panic, as if scared that if they didn’t say them now, they never would. Tears pooled heavily in their eyes. “But, I was so desperate to be accepted by them that I pushed away the only good thing my life had in it, apparently.” Alja felt even more sympathy, and this time she didn’t immediately crush it.

“It really sucks that your parents are intolerant like that.” Alja said, not certain how to respond. Kieran appeared to be just as broken as she was. “And I’m sorry I’m not a guy, I suppose.” She said, the pain quickly growing in her chest again. Kieran looked started at Alja’s last statement.

“Don’t be sorry!” Kieran exclaimed, seeming more animated than they had all morning. Alja didn’t dare say they looked cute. “It’s totally not your fault that I put unfair expectations on you, just so you’d fit my narrative. You’re your own person, and I have no right to take that from you.” They said.

Alja had no clue how to respond. She felt her walls fall apart like she had to Kieran the more and more they rambled. It was frustratingly endearing, and it was hard to stay mad when Alja probably would have done something similar in their situation.

“Okay.” Was all Alja said. Kieran looked taken aback.

“Okay?” They repeated. Alja nodded.

“Okay.” Kieran gave her the biggest smile and Alja’s heart melted. The feelings Alja were forced into quickly became overwhelming, but they felt too nice to stop now.

“I didn’t screw it up completely?” Kieran asked, still sounding bewildered.

“No, you didn’t. But I think we should definitely take it slow. I’m truly no master of feelings, and I think rushing into this would only hurt the both of us.” Alja said, trying to sound less like a mess than she was. Kieran nodded aggressively.

“That’s okay with me! I really don’t want to make you uncomfortable. You’ve somehow forgiven me for absolutely ruining our first encounter, and I’m certainly not going to ruin this again.” Kieran said, looking determined. Alja felt bad for how little self-esteem Kieran seemed to have.

“Nothing’s ruined, Kieran. As long as you’re willing to try, so am I.” Alja said. Kieran smiled wide yet again.

“Thank you,” Kieran said, their whisper wobbly and quiet.

“No problem,” Alja responded, also softer than before. Kieran stared at her face for a moment.

“Can I give you a hug?” They asked, fidgeting with the hem of their sleeve. Alja was taken aback. Just the idea that her soulmate wanted anything to do with her was overwhelming; the idea that her soulmate wanted to  _ give _ affection felt unreal.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Alja agreed awkwardly, almost embarrassed by just how  _ awkward _ she was. Kieran beamed and threw their hands around Alja’s waist, their head coming to lay on Alja’s clavicle. Alja was struck with how right it felt in every sense of the word. Kieran slowly pulled themself off after a moment. The bell for class rang somewhere in the distance.

“See you later, soulmate,” Kieran said, joy clear as day in their voice. Alja couldn’t keep the unfamiliar smile off her face if she tried.

“See you later, soulmate.”


End file.
